Flood!
by Woods Warrior
Summary: Iceheart has always been an unmotivated and unproductive warrior of StormClan, and everyone knows it. Will he answer the call to action when danger threatens the lives of the entire clan?


**Written as a challenge for LightClan. I hope you all enjoy it.**

Iceheart cracked open his eyes, and let out a sigh. Looking up through the small gaps in the ceiling of the warrior's den, he could see that the sky was covered by dark gray clouds. He didn't even need to look up to notice it was raining; he could hear the rain pelting the side of the den. _Hmm…wet, cold, valley? Or warm, cozy nest? _It was hardly a choice at all. Unfortunately, for the white tom, clan life didn't leave the choice up to him.

"Iceheart!" an irritated voice called, "Get your lazy tail up, and get moving! You're on the sunhigh patrol!"

Iceheart groaned tiredly before responding. "Why now, Whitestripe? It's only a little past dawn…" He finished the sentence yawning widely.

"You've been sleeping all day! It's sunhigh; we've got to go!" The white and tabby tom meowed, more irritated this time.

That got Iceheart's attention. He sat straight up and tried peeked through the small gaps in the ceiling once more, finding that the hardest area to look at was almost straight up. It _was_ sunhigh!

"Fox dung!" he cursed loudly, scrambling to get out the door.

"Great StarClan, he _can_ move!" Whitestripe meowed sarcastically. Iceheart shivered as he stepped out into the clearing, and was assaulted by the cold wind and rain. Whitestripe gave a signal with his tail and led his patrol out of the camp, Iceheart struggling to match his deputy's relentless pace.

"Can we slow down just a bit?" he asked. Iceheart had built up a reputation as the slowest cat in the clan, and that's when he was fully awake. With sleep still stubbornly clinging to him, he was slowed even more.

As he saw Whitestripe whip around to face him, Iceheart knew he had crossed the line, and incurred the wrath of the angry deputy.

"I'm sorry, Ice_kit!_" Whitestripe spat, "_Some _of us are busy actually being _warriors!_ You know, doing things like patrolling our borders, hunting for our clan, and _not sleeping all day!_" he let out an exasperated sigh to calm himself before continuing his berate. "Iceheart, you have been late to every patrol. You rarely go hunting, and when you do, it's even rarer that you catch anything. I tried giving you sunhigh patrols, so that you _might_ make it to these, but you can't even seem to do that! I don't know what to do with you!" he sighed and shook his head once more. "I can't do anything with you. I've tried everything. Whatever happens now is in Coalstar's paws. See him when we get back."

The words stung Iceheart's ears like bees. He looked down at his paws guiltily, as Whitestripe padded onward with the other two members of the patrol, who were shocked at seeing their usually calm deputy lose his temper. With his head and tail low, he hurried himself to catch up with them.

* * *

Iceheart sat nervously in the long deserted fox den that StormClan leaders had claimed as their own for moons. Near the entrance, Whitestripe sat as well, looking calm and emotionless; he didn't even seem to be acknowledging the fact that Iceheart was there. Neither of them moved until a large, black tom stepped into the den, and looked back forth between the warrior and deputy.

"Alright, Whitestripe, what's the problem?" the tom asked.

Whitestripe answered his leader. "Coalstar, Iceheart has made a habit of oversleeping, being late for patrols, and I suspect he doesn't even hunt when he says he is; no warrior who passed their assessment is _that_ poor of a hunter." Iceheart winced inwardly at the insult and the fact that it was well-deserved. "I've tried all I can to give him a fair chance at doing his duties, but I can't think of any other options," the deputy meowed.

Coalstar then turned his gaze to Iceheart. "Well?" he asked. "Why is that?" Iceheart began to open his mouth in reply, before shutting it. "That's what I thought," the leader meowed, "You don't have a reason, do you?"

Iceheart glanced downward from the black tom's eyes in submission. "No, Coalstar." With each passing second, more and more possibilities of what Coalstar's verdict could be were passing through his head. _Oh StarClan, I'm going to be an apprentice again! _The white tom fretted, before a truly horrifying thought crossed his mind. _He can't exile me for this, can he? _The more he thought about it, the more he realized that there wasn't much else to do with a useless cat who was neither a kit, nor an elder. He braced himself for his leader's judgment.

"Alright," Coalstar started, "You can't seem to wake up in the mornings, you can't keep up with patrols – let alone prey – and you seem to prefer to stay in camp. We can make this work. I'll even let you sleep until _past_ sunhigh, if you wish, but I guarantee that you won't get to sleep until dawn, because since you can't wake up in time for patrols, you're going to be guarding the camp every night. And from the time you wake up, you'll be caring for the elders, kits and queens until nightfall, since you can't seem to hunt for them."

Iceheart silently thanked StarClan that his punishment wasn't as bad as exile, but it was still just a mouse-tail away from demotion. Even so, he knew better than to argue.

"Yes, Coalstar," the warrior bowed his head to his leader.

"Good. Now why are you still in my den? The elders have ticks, and the medicine cat has mouse bile that I'm sure you could use," Coalstar ordered the warrior, giving a gesture with his tail, "Go."

"Yes, Coalstar!" Iceheart replied once more to his leader, before scrambling out of the den.

* * *

"It sure is coming down, out there," Iceheart heard one of the elders refer to the rain as he walked into the den.

"I remember when I was an apprentice, it rained enough that the lake at the top of the valley spilled over and flooded us out," the other elder replied.

"_Pah! _You can't even remember what you ate yesterday, Pinefur!" the first elder meowed back.

"I don't know about you, Grousepelt, but I had fresh kill. What have you been eating?" Pinefur retaliated, twitching his whiskers.

"See! You would know what I ate because we shared a rabbit!" Grousepelt said exasperatedly.

"Are you sure that was yesterday? Or was it the day before? Do you know for a fact that it even happened at all?" Pinefur stifled a laugh.

"For StarClan's sake, Pinefur, this whole 'which one of us is really senile' game doesn't work when there's only two of us!"

"Oh, that just makes it more fun, because neither of us could be, or we both could be. How would we be able to tell?"

Grousepelt sighed and shook her head, before noticing Iceheart walking in. "He's impossible to live with. It's like this all the time." She meowed.

Pinefur turned around, surprised. "Great StarClan, tom! When did you get here?"

Iceheart was about to answer when Grousepelt cut him off. "You just now noticed him? He's been standing there all day; since dawn!" she twitched her own whiskers, "See? I can do these mind games, too."

Iceheart couldn't help but to laugh a little at the spectacle, despite his mood. "I really just got here," he meowed, "I need to check you for ticks."

Pinefur let out a sigh. "Alright," he meowed, as he let Iceheart start searching through his fur, the smell of mouse-bile threatening to choke all three of them. "I hate the smell of that stuff. Anyway, back to the time the lake spilled over – see? I'm _not _senile," he shot a glance at his companion, before continuing with the story, "It was raining harder than I've ever seen. It was like all the water in StarClan itself was coming down on top of us! Then, we start hearing running water, like several new streams had just sprung up around us. We look up to the hill that holds back the lake, and we see that several new streams _had_ sprung up around us. That was the only warning we got. The next thing we know, water starts coming down the valley, as wide as the lake itself!"

Iceheart was engrossed in the story, by this point. With something of that magnitude, who wouldn't be? "Where did you go?" he asked the elder.

"We went to higher ground, of course!" of Pinefur replied with a hint of condescension, as if Iceheart lacked common sense, "We had to go up to the ridge to the west, and hold up in some tunnels up there."

"How long did you have to stay there, before the water went back down?" the younger cat asked.

"Oh, it was a moon, at least." The old tom answered. "Some of the worst weeks I can recall. Twolegs were tromping all through the woods, scaring away all of our prey. They even had a few of those monsters that can fly! It's no story, those things are real!" the elder exclaimed, annoying Iceheart with his movement – elders are much easier to check for ticks when they're sitting still – before regaining his composure, and continuing with the story. "What they were doing, I have no clue, but they seemed to have something to do with the water going back down."

Iceheart continued listening to the story as finished checking Pinefur for ticks. Having found none on the elder tom, Iceheart moved on to the other elder. The rest of the evening went similarly; with Iceheart simply doing his tasks, while listening to the elders tell stories and bicker with each other. Every now and then, he kept thinking of Pinefur's story of the flood. _Could it happen again? _He wondered, a shiver going down his spine as he thought of how much water it would take to completely flood the valley. _No way. It was just a fish story. There's no way that much water could come from the sky. _He tried to reason, but seeing how hard it was still raining, he was beginning to think that Pinefur's story may not have had too much exaggeration.

* * *

Iceheart had always prided himself on his night-vision. On a night like this, though, even he was finding it hard to see so much as his paw in front of his face. The thick, black clouds had blocked out all light; the only way any cat was able to see more than a tail-length in front of them, now, was when a flash of lightning lit up the landscape. With nothing to even be able to look at, and no sounds to hear besides the monotonous rain, the white tom was left alone with only his thoughts, which were made more dismal by the mood the weather helped create.

_It's not my fault I sleep so long. It's not like I can help it…_ he thought to himself, as the words of his leader and deputy echoed in his head. _I want to be able to be a good warrior. I just…_ he couldn't bring himself to admit the reason: he couldn't find the motivation. Admitting that would be almost akin to saying that the clan didn't matter to him. The clan _was _supposed to be a warrior's motivation, but when it came down to actually performing his duties, Iceheart found it hard to make any kind of tangible reason to be motivated. He knew without a doubt that was the problem. _But how can I fix it?_

A flash of lightning illuminated two shapes walking toward him, before a loud and high-pitched crack of thunder rattled through the valley, the ferocity of it almost being enough to make Iceheart jump out of his pelt. As the two shapes drew closer, another flash of lightning revealed them to be Coalstar and Whitestripe. Iceheart could tell by the expressions they wore, that the situation was starting to get more serious than he thought.

"Whitestripe and I are going up to check the water level of the lake. We may end up having to move the Clan," Coalstar explained, before padding past Iceheart as he made his way out of the camp's entrance. Iceheart felt his eyes widen at the words. Whitestripe stopped in front of the all-white tom before following his leader, pointing his head in Iceheart's direction, though the darkness made his expression impossible to make out. "Make sure you stay alert," he growled, before rushing off to join his leader.

Iceheart bristled at the deputy's words. _"Make sure you stay alert"? Does he think I'm going to fall asleep? _His heart sank with realization. _He does… He thinks I'm a liability. They all do. _He twitched his whiskers darkly, in spite of himself, _Well, they're probably right…_

He stood there, letting the rain wash over him, his mind gone blank. He thought that he was a liability, himself. What if he would fall asleep while guarding the camp, and let any enemies sneak by? What if he was too lazy to find dry moss for an elder's bedding, and they caught greencough? He wasn't even reliable enough to do menial apprentice tasks. _StormClan would be better off if I was just exiled. _He thought to himself, _If Coalstar won't exile me, then I'll just leave on my own. At least I will have done _something _good for this clan. _

It would be easy to leave; in the dead of night during a storm, with no cat to ask any questions or tell him otherwise. In fact, it was almost the perfect time to do it. He sighed, as a flash of lightning lit up the last look he expected see of what was once his home, and he set out to do the only good service he has ever done his clan.

He made it one step before he noticed something seemed wrong. Underneath the roaring din of falling rain, he heard something else… his eyes widened as he recalled Pinefur's story. _We start hearing running water, like several new streams had just sprung up around us... _He quickly looked in the direction of the large hill that held back the lake, praying to StarClan that another flash of lightning be sent. His prayers were answered as a horrific scene appeared before his eyes; water was starting to flow from behind the hill. His eyes went wide with fear as more lightning lit up the valley.

…_That was the only warning we got._

He could see a torrent of water start sliding down the hill, before the valley was once again plunged into darkness. At that moment, something seemed to shift in Iceheart; he felt something change, and fall into place. He didn't even have to think about his next move. He turned and ran back into the camp.

"Flood!" he yowled, as loud as he could, "The valley's flooding!" He ran into the warriors' den, "Everybody, get up! The valley's flooding!" Some were a little slow to respond, while others immediately jumped up, and scrambled around, trying to figure out what do. "Where's Coalstar and Whitestripe?" one asked. Iceheart's eyes grew wide as he realized that they were both out of the camp, and he was the one left on guard duty; the safety of everyone fell on him. He quickly shook away all feelings of fear as he answered. "They went to check the lake. Hurry and get your apprentices. Get the queens and kits out of camp; I'll get the elders. I need two to go around with me after everyone's left and make sure all the dens are empty." He pointed with his tail to two warriors, calling them by name. "Pheasantpelt, Nightheart, that's your job!" A pale tabby and a tortoiseshell she-cat both nodded. "Alright, we have our assignments! Let's go!" With that, he ran to the elder's den.

"Pinefur, Grousepelt! Wake up! We have to get you out of here; the valley's starting to flood!"

Pinefur was immediately up. "Fox dung! I knew it!" the elder exclaimed. Grousepelt was still sound asleep.

"Grousepelt, wake up! The valley's flooding!" Iceheart yowled at the elder, who just grumbled and adjusted her position in her nest in response.

"Grousepelt!" Iceheart yowled desperately, as water started collecting in the floor of the den. Pinefur shouldered Iceheart out of the way and unsheathed his claws, batting the other elder hard in her flank.

"What in the Dark Forest, Pinefur!" Grousepelt exclaimed as she jumped up, roused from her sleep. She then looked down to see the water washing over her paws. "Great StarClan, the camp's flooding! We need to get out of here!"

"No, you don't say! I was just planning on turning into a fish!" Pinefur meowed sarcastically, having to yowl in order to be heard over the din of the rain.

Iceheart sighed and shook his head. "You two can argue when we get to safety. For now, get to the center of camp with everyone else." He meowed as he led the elders out of the den.

He was met with the sight of the Clan already organized and ready to go. Nightheart and Pheasantpelt padded up to him. "We already checked all the dens; everyone's here," Nightheart meowed.

"Alright, good." Iceheart replied, before hesitating while he thought of what to do next. He remembered Pinefur's story about when the camp flooded before. "Pinefur," he called to the elder, "do you still remember where those tunnels are on the west ridge?"

"I'm not that old! Of course I still remember!" the old tom mewed back grumpily.

"Okay, I need you at the front with me. Nightheart, you and the other warriors need to go in the back, in case anyone falls behind. Apprentices, keep with your mentors, and mentors keep an eye on your apprentices. If you don't have an apprentice, find someone to pair up with so nobody gets left. Where's Grasswhisker?" He asked, before spotting the medicine cat, "You need to be in the front with us and kits and queens." Iceheart ordered, surprised at how fluidly the orders came out, and even more surprised that everyone seemed to be listening to him. Everyone quickly took their places and left the camp quickly. The water was almost chest-level by that time, and it seemed to be rising faster.

"We'll drown!" one of the kits wailed from the jaws of his mother.

"No we won't. We'll be just fine." His mother mewed through his scruff.

"No! You're lying! We're going to drown!" the kit yowled. The queen seemed to be at a loss of words to comfort her kit.

Seeing this, Iceheart quickly padded over to the kit and queen, and tried to calm him down as well as he could. "Hey, Kestrelkit," he mewed, trying his best to force a smile and enthusiasm in the midst of the chaos unfolding around him, "You know what my mother always told me to do whenever I was scared?"

"Wh-What?!" the scared kit asked the white tom.

"She told me to close my eyes, take deep breaths, and just start counting. Why don't you try doing that?" He mewed to the kit. The kit nodded, squeezed his eyes shut, and started counting, seeming to calm down as he went. Kestrelkit's mother looked to Iceheart and nodded, mouthing a "thank you". As they continued, Grasswhisker started saying a prayer to StarClan. Altogether, an almost calming effect was created as the storm raged around the cats, with winds so fierce that one could hardly stand straight before another gust of would make them stumble one direction or the other, rain coming down so hard that it felt like it would leave welts, and the raging torrent that was once the valley, seeming to keep up just a pawstep behind them, as they continued along a trail.

Without warning, the wind gusted with so great a force that Iceheart had to dig his claws into the mud to keep from being blown over. A sickening crackle was heard over the wind, and a bolt of lightning showed a great tree beginning to fall into the middle of the group. "Tree!" a warrior yowled, and all the cats scrambled to get out of the way. The tree slammed into ground, the sheer weight of it enough to send cats reeling from the shock, alone.

"Is everyone alright?" Iceheart yowled. It took a second for everyone to get their bearings and find who they paired up with, but all the cats appeared to still be able to walk. It was then that Iceheart saw the queen from before yowling frantically.

"Kestrelkit?! Kestrelkit?! Does anyone see him?!" the queen yowled in horror. Iceheart and the others began to search the tree frantically for the kit, fearing he may have been crushed, when the wind eased up just enough for a shrill yowling to be heard slightly farther down the steep hill.

"He's down there!" Iceheart alerted everyone, as he raced toward the source of the sound. The kit was trying to dig his paws into the earth to pull himself up the steep bank to no avail. Just below him, the fast-flowing water was ever rising, already washing over his rear paws.

"Help!" Kestrelkit yowled, before he closed his eyes tightly and counted, not knowing what else to do.

"_One…"_

Without thinking, Iceheart ran as fast as he could toward the kit. _Please, StarClan, if I'm supposed to anything right in this world, let this be it._ He slid down the bank on his claws, splashing into the water just beside Kestrelkit.

"_Two…"_

Hearing a loud splash upriver, Iceheart turned his head to see that another large tree had fallen into the water, and was careening straight toward him and the kit. At that speed, a full grown cat could still make it back up the bank, but not a cat with a kit. A choice had to be made: him or the kit. He prayed that he was making the right decision.

"_Three."_

Instinctively, he dug his claws into the earth as deep as possible, and launched himself up the bank as hard as he could. When the leap had brought him as high it would, he threw the kit from his jaws the rest of the way to the top, before splashing back down just in time to be greeted by a powerful collision with a tree. All the air was knocked from his lungs, and he found himself somewhere beneath the black, churning water, not even knowing which way was up. He struggled against the current as long as he could, hoping against hope that he might find the surface, acutely aware of the stinging in his chest. It wasn't too long before he quit struggling, and resigned himself to his fate. _Well, at least that's two good things I've done for StormClan, _he thought to himself, _Saved a kit, and got rid of a useless cat…StarClan, let it be enough…_

* * *

Within three moons, the valley had dried up, and StormClan was back in their old camp. Coalstar and Whitestripe had taken refuge on the opposite ridge from the rest of the clan, shortly after the valley had started flooding, but soon made their way to the makeshift camp after the rain had ceased, and they were greeted by the sight of all the cats of the clan that had been saved by Iceheart's actions.

As soon as he was able, Iceheart resumed doing the last thing he was ordered to do before the flood: watching over his Clan as they slept by night. It was an important job, he knew more than most, and the rewards were worth it. He sighed contently as his gaze shifted toward the nursery. Any day now, Kestrelkit would become Kestrelpaw, and as he watched the kit he had saved grow into an apprentice, he knew, without a doubt, that he had made the right decision that fateful night, despite what had happened. Every night, as soon as the first star came out, Iceheart stood guard over his clan, standing down only once the sun had completely risen over the horizon, and he would retire along with his warrior ancestors.

As he stretched in the warm sunlight beginning to wash over the camp, he knew that he would join those starry warriors someday.

"Iceheart!" he heard his deputy yowl for him. He quickly limped over on his three remaining legs.

"Yes, Whitestripe?" the warrior asked his deputy.

"You seem like you're starting to get around better. If you're up to it, I'd like you to join the sunhigh patrol, and try hunting with me afterword, so I can see if you're ready for full duties yet."

Excitedly, Iceheart nodded. "Of course I'm up to it!" he mewed, eager to take on more responsibilities for the clan.

"Alright, I'll see you at sunhigh then. And also, Kestrelkit is about six moons old, and we won't have another mentor available for at least two more moons. If you can still do everything that he needs taught, Coalstar and I think that you'd make a good mentor for him. Would you be willing to do that?" Whitestripe asked him.

Iceheart could barely contain his enthusiasm. "I'd be glad to mentor him!" he exclaimed.

"Okay, I'll let Coalstar know. Get some rest; you're going to need it." With that, Whitestripe turned and headed to the fresh kill pile, while the three legged warrior made his way back to the warriors' den, and laid down in his nest. Although one of his hind legs was completely crushed by the log during the flood, he knew he was still lucky to have washed up soon enough to have been saved from drowning. He saw it as a blessing in disguise; something which forced him to keep from falling back into his old habits of laziness. It was a constant challenge that was posed to him every day, and if it would help his clan, Iceheart would eagerly accept any challenge.


End file.
